Interfaith Community Echoing Peace in Bali

Thousands of participants from a number of elements of the interfaith community gathered at Monument of Bajra Sandhi, Renon, Denpasar, performing “Echoes of Peace” in the middle of the national situation and conditions in various parts of the world with many conflicts. “Peace and harmony does not fall from the sky for granted, but must be cultivated and maintained.

If all crave peace and harmony, then it should start from ourselves by eliminating anger and revenge and not be greedy that could humiliating peace,” said Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika while attending Echoes of Peace in Denpasar, on Saturday. According to him, even though Bali is a small island, but the echo of peace is expected to be heard worldwide.

Moreover, that Former Chief of Bali Police continued, a number of slogan are pinned to Bali, including the “Island of Peace and Democracy”, “Island of Love” which is expected to be the voice of peace in Bali to be shown to the world. Pastika also urged mankind to always do introspection among ethnic backgrounds, religions, and races which are diverse in Indonesia.

“We can be different but the point is that there is no religion that teaches bad thing, all of them peace and love,” he said. Echoes of Peace Committee Chairman 2014, Made Suryawan said there was no difference in the implementation of activities in previous years. He insisted that there is no special thing that rose though a number of related problems occur among turbulent politics in the country.

However, more emphasis should be in upgrading sound of peace both quantitative and qualitative. “We do not interfere politically. We want this event to be pure. We realize that peace become something rare and expensive that it should be encouraged qualitatively and quantitatively,” he said.

He hoped that local governments throughout Indonesia also socialize peace echoes in order that activity is not only implemented in Bali. In this 11th event, the activity that were held the day before the anniversary of 2002 Bali Bombing, a number of activities were held such as “Padayatra” by surrounding the field glorify the name of God, the prayers, until the peace torch ignition.